


Secret Things

by Shapeshifter99



Category: Banana Fish
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, this takes place during the manga so anime fans be warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 08:15:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15384534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shapeshifter99/pseuds/Shapeshifter99
Summary: Eiji Okumura knew many things about Ash that no one else did.





	Secret Things

**Author's Note:**

> Help, I've fallen into the Banana Fish fandom and can't get up!

Eiji Okumura knew many things about Ash that no one else did. On complete accident, he’d tumbled into the infamous gangster’s life and yet now found himself at Ash’s side as his closest friend and confidant. He still didn’t know how he’d gotten so wrapped up and entranced with this new life, or why Ash had chosen him of all people to reveal his true self to, but that was the way things were. He wouldn’t change it for the world.

So yes. Eiji knew a lot of secret things about Ash.

It was so easy for him to strip the other’s layers away, terribly easy to see the hurting boy underneath the surface of a hard, dangerous murderer. Sometimes he pretended he didn’t, even when they were alone, but Ash could see right through him too.

 _It’s a two-way street, Eiji,_ he’d say with a reckless smile, one of his fake expressions that had Eiji’s stomach roiling unpleasantly. _You know me… and I know you._

Eiji knew Ash kept a stone from Cape Cod tucked away wherever he could, no matter where they were currently hiding out. It was smooth, completely worn from days in the ocean and days in Ash’s hands where he could rub his thumb over the divots, and a dark grey. He fiddled with it if he had it on hand and he was bored or when something was bothering him, an automatic tic that no one but Eiji had seemed able to catch.

He’d seen Eiji’s curious glances at it one day and silently offered it to him, palm up.

“Are you sure?” Eiji had asked, feeling like to touch it was just as risky as asking to hold Ash’s gun all those months ago.

“I wouldn’t be showing it to you if I wasn’t,” had been Ash’s reply, tinged with a mix of exasperation and fondness.

Eiji hummed in agreement but was still slow and careful as he took the stone from Ash’s palm. It was still warm from him, a fact that seemed strangely intimate, and sat well so well in the curve of his fingers that Eiji immediately understood why Ash seemed to have it on him at all times.

“It’s nice,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the curve and feeling the smooth slide of it.

There was a faint smile quirking at the corner of Ash’s mouth. “It’s a rock, Eiji.”

“Yes, but…” Eiji stared down at the inconspicuous formation of mineral. Sometimes it was hard explaining things with his current English vocabulary, but he struggled on valiantly anyways. “Because it is yours… because of how you treat it… it makes me think that it is a precious jewel. Or rather, reminds me of one.” He knew the phrase sounded stupid as soon as he’d uttered it and ducked his head in a vain attempt to hide his flushing cheeks. But it was what he felt—anything that Ash held, whether it be a weapon or this simple rock, seemed to transform under his touch into something _more_. Eiji sometimes wondered if that included himself, if the brushes of fingers against his back or the clapped palms on his shoulders would suddenly take him from Japanese photography assistant into something else.

“That’s dumb,” Ash said, not really meaning it.

Eiji lifted his head, feeling a bit put out, but stopped when he saw the distracted look on Ash’s face, and the thumb pressed against the corner of his mouth as if he was embarrassed. Eiji smiled and handed the rock back over.

“Maybe so,” he replied. “But it is what I think.”

Ash’s eyes, so often like chipped jade these days, softened into something summery. “Yeah. Guess I can’t change that.”

 

Not all of Ash’s secrets were so pleasant.

Something else that Eiji was confident no one else knew about were Ash’s night terrors. They didn’t happen all the time, but when they did, Ash wasn’t the only one shaken. It was agonizing sometimes to hear Ash crying out against some unknown assailant, or to hear him weeping over the friends he’d lost. Once or twice, Eiji had even heard him mutter Shorter’s name, and had turned in his bed away from Ash’s shaking form in a mix of helplessness and guilt.

When he could, though, Eiji would try and help.

The first time he’d tried to intervene, gently shaking Ash’s shoulders to get him to wake up, he’d been greeted with a punch to the cheek, followed by a series of wildly swinging fists that took three incredibly long seconds to stop.

Ash had looked so guilty, so broken when he realized what he’d done, immediately resisting any of Eiji’s attempts to comfort him despite Eiji's insistence that he was alright. They had ended on their beds, quiet in the worst way possible, Eiji feeling as if the distance between them spanned oceans.

That night had been hard for the both of them.

After that, Eiji took to calling Ash’s name from the safety of his own bed and sometimes threw pillows at him. It almost always worked, jolting Ash out of his panicked hazes more quickly than a bucket of ice water.

Those times, Eiji would silently slip from beneath his covers when he saw that Ash was cognizant and sit on the bed with him. There were still instances where Ash didn’t want to talk, instead staring dully at the wall with red-rimmed eyes and a body wound tighter than the springs of their beds while Eiji sat quietly next to him, but more often than not, he would open up. The fragile cracks in his armor would be pulled apart to reveal his true self, the one that Eiji sometimes felt he knew better than himself.

It was never clear who made the first move, but those times always ended up with Eiji’s hand on Ash’s back or in his hair, stroking comfortingly as Ash gave himself a moment to break down and just _be_. It was those moments that Eiji loved and hated the most.

Ash was always a casually affectionate person, but after his nightmares he would cling to Eiji like there was no tomorrow. Wrapping his arms around Eiji’s torso, lying in his lap like that first night he’d confided in Eiji, or shifting them so the breakdown would end with them sprawled on the bed together, their breaths and heartbeats synchronized.

The reason Eiji loved it was because he longed to give Ash the affection he needed and deserved. The reason he hated it was why those moments had to happen in the first place.

One night, Ash’s limbs hopelessly tangled with Eiji’s, he found himself tracing the lines of Ash’s face with his gaze. Ash’s long, blond lashes slid lazily open to reveal bright green eyes that were half-asleep now that Eiji had chased the nightmares away. Ash’s face was so rarely fully relaxed that when it was, it made him seem especially vulnerable, and Eiji found his breath catching a little in his throat from pain and affection.

“What is it?” Ash asked, his voice thick with drowsiness.

Eiji’s lips pursed. His hand, which had been slowly tracing up and down Ash’s spine in soft caresses, paused in its path. “I just wish…” He faltered. Ash kept staring at him steadily. “I just wish we did not have to do this.”

Hurt flashed in Ash’s eyes and he shifted, poised to move away. Nearly too late, Eiji realized his mistake and grabbed at his arm. “No! Wait, Ash! You misunderstood me.”

His panicked words were enough to make Ash pause with his elbow propping him half-up and he stared at Eiji warily.

“I just meant that I don’t like seeing you like this.” The admission was hushed. “When you wake up, I mean.”

Ash’s head tilted downwards and his soft hair became a curtain for his eyes. “Trust me, it’s no fun for me either,” he replied, his voice humorless. However, he did slowly sink back into the comfort of the bed and left his legs hooked over Eiji’s calf and between his thighs.

Tentatively, Eiji reached out and brushed some of the strands of silken gold away to find Ash’s troubled expression below. “I know, Ash. I just hope that someday, the pain will lessen.”

Ash breathed out a small sigh, as if he were at war with himself. “It’s already easier with you here,” he finally admitted, almost too quietly for Eiji to hear. “I fall asleep more quickly, knowing that you’ll be there when I wake up.”

When Eiji understood, his heart began to thud in his chest and he felt lightheaded. Ash was never shy about saying that he needed Eiji as much as Eiji needed him, but it felt different in the shadows and moonlight, with Ash’s soul so recently surfaced and his sharp looks smudged into something softer.

He reached out and brushed his fingers along the curve of Ash’s jaw, causing the other’s eyes to close briefly. “Then I will stay.” Eiji smiled a bit, then added, “Forever.”

Ash’s lips formed the word again, a silent echo that never met their ears. He relaxed fully into Eiji, his hands curling up to rest between their chests as the final weight from his nightmare disappeared. Eiji continued to caress Ash, tracing his face the way he sometimes found himself longing to, then back to Ash’s curved back where he could brush his thumb against the nobs of his spine as Ash’s eyes slipped closed... For good this time.

Like that, with Eiji close, breathing softly and grounding him, Ash fell back into sleep. This time Eiji hoped it would be dreamless, and it was.

 

Of all of Ash’s secrets though, there was one that was Eiji’s favorite. It had never been spoken aloud, but Eiji believed in it with the faith of a priest. It had been guessed at, tossed around by those who opposed Ash as a tentative tool of destruction or a means of getting what they wanted, but no one knew how deeply the truth ran.

Because Ash’s most precious not-so-secret thing was that he loved Eiji.

Eiji’s most precious not-so-secret thing was that he loved Ash back.


End file.
